Area Man Offers His Own Theory About Mad Max: Fury Road

I saw Fury Road, and it’s just as great as everyone says. The action is hard without being dour, the pace is quick without being dizzying, every character seems instantly iconic, they cram in a few sharp yuks, and in general this entry does not violate the fast n’ loose Mad Max mythos.

On that last point…

The main antagonist of Fury Road is played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who also played the Toecutter in the inaugural Mad Max. Hugh’s got very distinct eyes and they are in fact the only bit of his face you can see in the new film. His hair is kinda the same too. Thus, it is my belief that his Fury Road character is actually the Toecutter (the same way the Humungus in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is thought to be Max’s fallen partner from Mad Max 1). Yes, somehow the Toecutter survived being run over by that tractor trailer. Stranger things have happened.

Following this logic, Fury Road is taking place thirty years after the events of Beyond Thunderdome, in real time, and Tom Hardy is not playing the original Mad Max but Max’s son. The Rockatansky clan isn’t defeated on screen in the first movie a la the Toecutter. It looks like the bikers hit them, and then Max hears they’re dead or near death at the hospital. So again, the child, though a defenseless infant creamed by a motorcycle, could have lived.

This is why the Max of Fury Road is hesitant about giving his name—he isn’t even sure who he is. He’s still piecing it all together. This is also why the film doesn’t make any great pains to say “this is MAD MAX, the LEGEND.” He’s not. He’s Max Junior. Or Sprog, rather, as he was known in 1979.

There are holes in this theory. How could Max’s son be driving his father’s car, the legendary last of the V8 Interceptors, when it was destroyed in The Road Warrior? I don’t know. Maybe everyone in Road Warrior was mistaken about the availability of V8 Interceptors. You know, people find stuff that’s supposedly lost to history all the time. Maybe someone in the Outback hung on to this car like Obi-Wan hung onto that lightsaber on the off chance his pal’s kid would show up one day.

And what of the elder Mad Max? Does he still roam the wastelands? Sure, why not. That would make an excellent sequel. Max versus Max, father versus son. Charlize Theron’s Furiosa wouldn’t know whose side to take. Then Tina Turner could show up with fuckin’ Emil Minty and take this dirty-ass circus to a whole ‘nother level.

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